Ceci 2.0

Amanda and me at her baby shower last month. See my wavy hair? Amanda taught me that.

Amanda was 25—a friend of a friend's whom I "just had to meet", because "we had so much in common." I, on the other hand, had just pushed into my 30s and had given birth to Caedmon 10 months prior. I was still sporting a prominent baby bump, had the tell-tale ring of post-partum fuzz at my hairline and traces of spit-up on my shoulder. I was tired and run-down. An image of a bedraggled dog—the mother of our childhood puppy, Indee—had been etched in my memory oh-so-many years ago and resurfaced now each time I looked in the mirror. Once a prized Sheltie, Indee's mom now had fur that was long, stringy, and limp. Her teats hung low and heavy, and she had looked worn and unkempt. At 16, I didn't have the maturity to see the bigger beauty in a mother's sacrifice; all I saw was a wreck of a once-beauty, and I felt sorry for her. Fourteen years later, I had become Indee’s mom.

This was the state I was in when our matchmaker friend set up a lunch date for me and Amanda.

Upon arriving, Amanda bounded up to me, bright-eyed, perky, no baby flab in sight. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders in loose waves, and she wore a bright blue blouse with cheery white polka dots and a red felt flower pinned jauntily to her lapel. This was over a pair of tailored skinny jeans that I knew, for me, were about a bajillion lunges away. Her ensemble was polished and exclaimed classic yet fun. I'm pretty sure I wore a potato sack.

But despite our apparent discrepancy in appearance, we, indeed, had much in common. Too much. This is how our conversation went:

    Amanda: "So, Cecilia, what do you do?"

    Me: "I was a teacher until I had my son, and now I stay home with him."

    Amanda: "Oh, I used to teach, too. I got my Masters in Education and then I taught for 5 ½ years.                         You?”

    Me: “Um, no Masters. And I only taught for two years until the kiddo came…” And then to change                 the subject, “Um, I really like to bake...”

Not yet sensing the self-effacing danger I was in, I offered, "When I first moved up here, my sister-in-law and I set up a bakery of sorts. We sold a few items to friends, but it was mostly for fun." I chuckled, remembering our bakery that was more of a grown-up lemonade stand, born out of our shared boredom and temporary unemployment.

    Amanda: “Oh, that's so funny! I actually started my own professional bakery! I make wedding cakes                     and cupcakes and French macarons. In fact, I have 200 rattle-shaped sugar cookies                        cooling at home before I decorate them for a baby shower this weekend."

My eyes narrowed to slits.

    “I run.”

    “So do I!”

    

    “I like to craft and make things with my hands.”

    “I love crafting. I am in the middle of painting my dressing room walls with giant gold polka dots,         and I have this vintage dresser I found at a thrift store that I’m refinishing.”

    "I have two dogs," I offered, warily.

Need I say it? Amanda, of course, had three.

Our conversation was turning all too predictable, and I was turning all too pathetic with self-loathing. When we said goodbye, I made a beeline for my car. Can you blame me that I wasn't super keen on furthering this demoralizing friendship with Amanda?

Later that night, while getting ready for bed, I related the day's earlier events to Wayne. "It was just weird," I said, "how much we have in common. It's like she studied my life but somehow did everything better.” "It’s Ceci 2.0!" He grinned at his joke, because this was clearly amusing to him.

I turned my head haughtily away, and as I did so, I caught the heavily-bagged eye of Indee’s mom in the mirror. He was right. Amanda was the younger, cuter, more successful, less lumpy version of me. She was, indeed, Ceci 2.0. And I did not like it one bit. I quickly waved it off, though. It didn't matter that there was a beta version of me jogging with her three dogs around my town, because I had no intentions of pursuing this friendship.

But Amanda had a different idea. Not only was she younger, cuter, and more successful, she was also friendlier and more generous, and so shortly after our lunch date, she called to hang out again. 

    "Aw, I'm sorry, but I'm busy next week," I said. 

    "The next week, then?" was Amanda's reply. 

I pretended to flip through my planner. "You know, I have this thing..." 

    "No problem,” Amanda chirped, “my calendar is open the following week!" 

Apparently, she was also dogged and relentless. There were only so many "things" I could be involved in, so eventually, we settled on a date to meet up and craft.

Over fabric shopping and reupholstering our chairs, I found out that she, too, owned the same yellow paisley picture frame that was sitting in my guest room (of course), that we both got married on vineyards (where else?), and get this, the tag lines to our bakeries, that we had come up with on our own years before, were worded almost exactly the same: my Sweet treats for those sweet occasions to her Sweet treats made to order for all occasions (I mean, what the heck?!). It was unnerving.

But then I also learned about Amanda's classroom and how she stuck mustaches on all her students one year for a class picture, her unsuccessful efforts to end her tutoring gig that somehow resulted in an addition of more hours to her already busy schedule, and that, when we got deeper, she had battled extensively, sometimes fiercely, with her self-image in college and is now all the stronger for it. And that's when something began to change. Against my initial will, Amanda was fast becoming a friend. When we said goodbye, this time, I was the one who asked when we could hang out again.

Later on, we would collaborate on numerous crafting projects and make frequent trips “to town” (what I’ve dubbed Roseville, our closest city with an Anthropologie and Crate and Barrel), and I began to trust Amanda’s friendship, as well as her sense of style. It was over these subsequent trips that Amanda helped me out of my post-partum jeans-and-loose-cotton-tee rut, and challenged me with more flattering silhouettes, bold colors, and pairing—gasp—patterns with patterns (who am I kidding; I’m still not that brave). And over clothing racks and lunch, we’d share more stories of life—listening, relating, and offering advice when applicable.

It has been almost two years now, and Amanda has become one of my dearest companions. I am so thankful that I—or Amanda, really—didn't let my cattiness and insecurities get in the way of what has become a true-blue friendship. 

Amanda will be having her first baby in January (a boy—another thing we will have in common), and I can genuinely and passionately say that I am so excited for her in this next life chapter, and to be able to share all the ups and downs of running after a little one. And if, though unlikely, she ends up looking and feeling like Indee's mom, I'll be there to tell her that I've, too, been there. And we'll commiserate, and do some crunches, and go shopping, and laugh at, yet, another shared experience between my second edition and me.